With Friends Like These
by Lucillia
Summary: There were times when Naruto used his reputation for being incredibly dense to avoid awkward conversations and/or situations. Thankfully, when it came to one issue, Sasuke believed he really was that stupid, and didn't question any further.


Naruto sighed as he looked over at Sasuke who had scowled when he'd made some sort of comment about not knowing his family was gone. Pretending that he'd forgotten or didn't know about the demise of the Uchiha clan when he was around Sasuke was easier than the other option.

Telling the boy the truth, which was that for the most part he was glad that Sasuke's clan was gone, would be a supremely bad idea. Really, he wouldn't have cared either way about the Uchiha, much like he didn't care either way about most of the villagers, if they hadn't actively harassed him for as long as he could remember. Where the other villagers had confined themselves to glares, whispers, and cold-shoulders, with the occasional jerk tossing him out of his shop/stall, the Uchiha had gone out of their way to completely ruin his day, week, month, whatever.

He wasn't exaggerating about it being as far back as he could remember. His first memory had been of a day when he was two or so, and he'd met his first Uchiha. On that day, he'd really had to go potty, but he was outside, so he had gone against a tree like he'd seen a doggy do earlier. The next thing he knew, he was being picked up by the back of his shirt. When he looked up, he had found himself looking into a pair of red eyes with black spots on them. Before he knew it, he was being charged with "Public Urination" and being carried off to the police station where they took his fingerprints and picture, and threw him into a holding cell.

Over the next five or so years, the Uchiha continued to pick him up on bullshit charges, and he ended up spending so much time in the holding cells at the station that he'd practically lived there. Thanks to his rap sheet, which was nearly a mile long by the time he was six, the Old Man had been forced to use some ancient law that had been meant to bulk up numbers in a time of war by recruiting disposable cannon fodder who were given the option of either becoming Ninja or going to jail in order to allow him to go to the Academy.

So, it was only natural that he'd disliked the Uchiha, especially since every time he encountered a police officer in another village now that he'd started leaving Konoha on missions, his first instinct was to "assume the position". He did however have just enough brains and tact to know it would be better for what little friendship he had with Sasuke, and safer for him overall, not to let on that he'd hated the bastards.

_Uchiha Fugaku sighed as he listened to Tekka's report. The Jinchuriki was running loose again, and its caretaker was doing fuck and all about it as usual. In the past month, the brat had nearly gotten itself killed twice, and there was pretty much nothing he could do about it because if he tried to take charge of the child the heads of the other clans would be in an uproar over his supposed grab for power. The Uchiha clan was unpopular enough now due to what had been good fortune on the night of the Kyuubi attack, but proved not to be so in the long run. If people thought that he was trying to take control of the Kyuubi..._

_But, on the other hand, that was a two-and-a-half year-old kid who could get himself killed by poking his nose in the wrong place at the wrong time wandering loose out there, and nobody was doing anything about it..._

_Upset over the fact that he was helpless in the situation, and he hated feeling helpless for any reason, he dismissed Tekka and went to get a cup of coffee._

_"...And, then I said 'Try that again, and you'll be spending the night in a holding cell'..." one of his two cousins who were hogging the coffee pot was saying to the other when he arrived, obviously talking about that drunk who'd tried to pick a fight the night before, and was currently cooling his heels in one of the station's holding cells._

_Spending the night in a holding cell..._

_Well, that just might work._

_"You." he said to the cousin who finally moved aside so he could get his coffee. "Pass the word that the new department policy for dealing with the Uzumaki child when he is running loose is to find a legitimate charge that he could be held on, and then arrest him."_

_It could work. Children broke the law all the time without noticing, and unlike several surrounding jurisdictions, Konoha didn't have a minimum age of criminal responsibility. _

_The boy wouldn't be happy about being stuck in a holding cell, but at least he would be safe._


End file.
